the Wednesday hodgepodge

 

Happy Wednesday, friends! I'm here with Joyce again today for the weekly hodgepodge...this is a post that I dearly love; thank you, Joyce, for your inspiring and thought provoking questions each and every week! I'm glad this will be continuing in the new year, since it's become one of my favorite posts of each week. 

1. Did you make resolutions or set goals for the year we're waving goodbye to? How did that work out for you? Will you set any goals for this new year, new season, or new month? Share one or two if you'd like to tell us about this. I think I used to regularly set goals for myself in a new year, and for a long time I had a word of the year for my life. In looking through this year's earliest blog posts, I didn't set anything like that for myself in 2025. Honestly, at that point, I was still in survival mode. I still am, some days, honestly, and this feels like a lot of pressure that I don't need. I loved what I did for this year, though: I chose a Bible verse for my year, and I think I'll do that again in the new year. For 2025, it was Psalm 16:11, which says this: You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of Your presence and the pleasures of living with You forever. I love this translation of the verse; it's the NLT. I'll have to think about a verse for 2026, so stay tuned. 

2. When did you have the most fun this year? I had the most fun this year when I traveled. There is something magical about traveling with your best friend. I remember driving home from Louisville with Marilyn, and us laughing so hard that I could barely see. I almost had to pull over because of this, what ended up forcing a quick stop after our fit of laughter was my need for a restroom! Small bladder be damned. 🤣 I will always say that anytime spent laughing with people I love is a favorite of mine, and it's when I have the most fun. I am blessed to say that I had a lot of laughter this year. I laughed with my sons, my family members, and Chris. He is one of the funniest people I've ever been around and from date one, he has made me laugh. 

This one is an inside joke between Marilyn, Amy, and me and is what led to all the laughter between Marilyn and me as we drove home that day. 

Please note that I let Soulmate drive my car when we travel. I was distracted on this trip, and she needed to take over for a good long while. These were the times when I laughed the hardest this year! 

3. What's a song or lyric that you'll always associate with 2025? Tell us why. Well there's one that is probably inappropriate for this blog, but it's one by Ceelo Green that Marilyn and I listened to a lot this year. On a nicer note, there are two others that also come to mind and that are more reader friendly. One is this one by Phil Wickham called Love of God. 

And the other polar opposite type song is this one by Parker McCollom called Hell of a Year that I've shared before.

Not all of the lyrics are applicable to me, but a lot of them are. And just the title gets me every time I listen to this. You all know the reason for this: 2025 brought about divorce, my first full year of living life solo and paying all of my own bills, a brand new full-time job, a huge time of adjusting to this new reality of my life, the finality of my dad's death, and a brand new relationship. Yeah, it's been a hell of a year, alright. Sorry to curse, but you all know my heart, and I'm feeling reflective. 

4. Best (or a favorite) bite of something delicious you tasted this year? My friend and co-worker Karen has introduced me to her fabulous cooking; she has brought me lunch to work before, she has bought my lunch for my birthday, and she has baked many a cake already since July 28th. I would easily categorize her cakes as the best and most delicious thing/s I've tasted all year! 

This top picture is the birthday cake she made for my birthday. It was so freaking good! I could have eaten the whole thing alone. The second one is the carrot cake she brought after Thanksgiving. This woman can cook! How fortunate are we that she shares her love of cooking with us who eat lunch together everyday? 

5. What do you want to do more of this year? Less of? I want to do more savoring of the time I have. I want to hang out with my sons more when they invite me. I want to say yes to doing more things! I want to do less of the things that drain me, energy wise. I'm not really sure what that would be, off the top of my head, but I have to be careful with my time now that it's not my own. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. As I'm writing this, I'm listening to a playlist that I created on Spotify of my favorite music. These are the songs that have gotten me through this year! I have two of these, actually, one is a worship one and the other is secular music. Both have been lifesavers to me, though! I'm grateful for the gift of music, and it's awesome to hear songs from the people I've now seen in concert. I want to go to more concerts! I need more of this music in my life; I just need to figure out how to pay for my new and expensive hobby. 🤣

Thanks for reading my blog today, friends! I can't wait to read your answers to these prompts today. Love to all!

Jenn